


Crowns

by commodorecliche



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Established Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Shiro-centric, dying together in battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 09:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10214525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commodorecliche/pseuds/commodorecliche
Summary: Kings wear crowns, but there are no crowns for killers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble written for [the-chibster](http://the-chibster.tumblr.com)'s prompt "crowns".

_Champion_ , they call him. Victor, warrior, blood-stained vanquisher. _King of the Arena_ , they shout from the stands as he looms above a crumpled body with pints of red sloughing off the tips of his fingers.

Kings wear crowns, Shiro always thinks, but there should be no crowns for killers. He tastes blood when he swallows, and he cannot rid his nostrils of that acrid iron smell.

Kings wear crowns, champions get medals, and Shiro deserves nor wants either.

His captors burden him with both: the gruesome silver plating melts grotesquely into the muscle of the thing he had once thought to call his body. And when he escapes, it is only with a crown of viscera across his brow and a medal that feasts upon the flesh of the human being he thought he was.

Kings wear crowns; killers don't. But he's starting to wonder if there's even a difference between the two.

 _You're not a killer, Shiro...,_ Keith tells him in the quiet of their bedroom. And Shiro wants to plead with him, to tell Keith that he is, _I am, I **am**! Can't you see that? Please, will you still love me, if I am?_

_Please, oh god.... Will you still love me if your blood is on my hands?_

But he never argues, he never pleads - and Keith loves him all the same.

 _Champion!_ , the witch shouts at him in the thralls of battle. Shiro's lover fights like a knight by his side. But he falls like a pawn in the witch's grasp, and once again, Shiro can see all of the red that stains his own hands.

Blood for blood, body for body, crown for crown, there is nothing left he has to give. Keith doesn't move - will never move again - and Shiro is no champion in this place.

When she finally strikes him down, Shiro figures it's what he deserves. No victory, no medal, no crown; just blood and pain and dying light as he stares into the ashen face of his fallen love.

Kings wear crowns, but they live while others die.

And Shiro can do neither any longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! And uh, sorry about the angst. 
> 
> Rebloggable version [here](http://commodorecliche.tumblr.com/post/158245102823/crown-sheith)


End file.
